The return of the repressed?: the gender politics of emergent forms of professionalism in education

Three distinct discourses frame this paper: ‘new public managerialism’, new modes of governmentality, and new masculinities and femininities. This paper considers the changing forms of governance in projects of educational professionalism emerging in the nested contexts of teaching, teacher training, and academic research within departments of education. It takes the production of the subject position of the manager/wo‐manager as central to managerialist regimes theorized as provoking and potentiating modes of recruitment, refusal, and mis/recognition. It illustrates this through a heuristic relational schemata constituted by the dominance of the managerialist—audit gaze. Taking a theoretically similar but methodologically different (i.e. non‐empirical) approach (or liberty?), one understands subject positions like Prichard and Deem, as produced ‘through a series of discursive or communicative practices’ realized in different ‘conditions of possibility’. The notion of ‘communicative practice’ was also put under scrutiny, given the monovocal as opposed to the dialogic nature of audit: ‘Audit is essentially a relationship of power between scrutinizer and observed: the latter are rendered objects of information, never subjects in communication’.1 This paper was originally given as part of a symposium on gender and teacher training in higher education at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference Leeds, 13–15 September 2001. The paper has been subsequently revised as a result of conversations with other colleagues in the Professional Education Research and Reading Group, Cathy Aymer and Toyin Okitikipi. It has also been significantly reworked in the light of reviews and we thank our reviewers for their insights. One is, thus, interested in the ubiquity of the ‘managerialist subject position’ as a limit condition for the professional self and how gender gets reworked within this. One is aware that the paper slides across the domains of teaching, teacher training, and academic and professional work identities. It is not presented as an orthodox ‘labour process’ account, neither is it a conventional sociological reading of ‘professionalism’. The authors wish to deliberately keep open the possibilities provided by this lack of specificity through exercising the sociological imagination. The following is best considered an experiment in social critique deriving from a post‐structuralist methodological stance. The aim is to capture through metaphorical means the temperature and tempo of some experiential dimensions of the gendered regulation of educational subjectivities, thought as a central psychosocial feature of the ‘domaining effect’ of audit.     

Expanding horizons—into the future with confidence!

Gifted students often show a deep interest in and profound concern for the complex issues of society. Given the leadership potential of these students and their likely responsibility for solving future social problems, they need to develop this awareness and also a sense of confidence in dealing with future issues. The Future Problem Solving Program (FPSP) was developed to meet these needs, by an emphasis on (a) problem solving, (b) creative solution finding, (c) group work and research skills, and (d) exploration of a wide range of current issues. In this Australian study, subsequently replicated in the United States, ten years of former program participants were surveyed to examine their perceptions of the impact of the program in the light of its objectives.     

Classifying Prosocial Behavior: Children's Responses to Instrumental Need,Emotional Distress,and Material Desire

This study investigates the diversity of early prosocial behavior by examining the ability of ninety‐five 2‐ to 4‐year‐olds to provide aid to an adult experimenter displaying instrumental need, emotional distress, and material desire. Children provided appropriate aid in response to each of these cues with high consistency over multiple trials. In contrast to the consistency with which the children provided aid within each task, there were no cross‐task correlations, and the tendency to respond to each of the cues revealed unique developmental trajectories. Taken together, these results provide preliminary support for the importance of examining the cues to which children are responding and of differentiating between varieties of aid when considering the development of prosocial behavior.     

Bridging the Gap Between Academic Gerontology and the Educational Needs of the Aging Network

Colleges and universities have failed to meet the long-recognized, growing need for nonacademic-credit gerontology education. With the explosive growth of the aging network, other organizations have readily responded to the fast-growing market. Results of two needs assessments over a 5-year period demonstrate employers' higher support for noncredit gerontology educational experiences over for-credit academic degree programs. The Professional Development in Gerontology Certificate Program at Kennesaw State University, which has grown substantially over the past 7 years, is a viable model for easy adoption by other colleges and universities who wish to meet community needs for gerontology noncredit education.     

Making the invisible visible: a methodological and a substantive issue

This article discusses the issue of ‘making the invisible visible’ from a methodological and a substantive viewpoint. The ideas emerged from a doctoral research study into individual target setting with middle ability students in an English secondary school. The students involved had been identified by assessments as ‘average’ and by their teachers as quiet, unnoticed children. It is suggested that the methods used by the researcher to elicit the students' perceptions could also be used by teachers in order to engage these quiet students in a learning discourse.     

Student laboratory presentations as a learning tool in anatomy education

Previous studies have shown that anatomy students who complete oral laboratory presentations believe they understand the material better and retain it longer than they otherwise would if they only took examinations on the material; however, we have found no studies that empirically test such outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of oral presentations through comparisons with other methods of assessment, most notably, examination performance. Specifically, we tested whether students (n = 256) performed better on examination questions on topics covered by their oral presentations than on other topics. Each student completed two graded, 12‐minute laboratory presentations on two different assigned topics during the course and took three examinations, each of which covered a third of the course material. Examination questions were characterized by type (memorization, pathway, analytical, spatial). A two‐way repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that students performed better on topics covered by their presentations than on topics not covered by their presentations (P < 0.005), regardless of presentation grade (P > 0.05) and question type (P > 0.05). These results demonstrate empirically that oral presentations are an effective learning tool. Anat Sci Educ 2: 260–264, 2009. © 2009 American Association of Anatomists.     

Undergraduate Students with Nonapparent Disabilities Identify Factors that Contribute to Disclosure Decisions

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the reasons university students with nonapparent disabilities gave for formally disclosing their disability and seeking the university’s disability services or not and the consequences they associate with their decisions. Conducted in a Mid-western four-year university, nine students with self-identified nonapparent disabilities participated in the study. Qualitative semistructured interviews were conducted to gather in-depth data from participants. A five-stage approach to qualitative data analysis was adapted to analyse the data. The findings indicate positive experiences with formal disability disclosure, but revealed barriers impeding students’ desire to disclose. Recommendations challenge colleges and universities to create an inclusive ethos for all students with disabilities by removing barriers impeding their full participation in academia.     

Projecting to the NAEP Scale: Results from the North Carolina End-of-Grade Testing Program

Data from the North Carolina End-of-Grade test of eighth-grade mathematics are used to estimate the achievement results on the scale of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Trial State Assessment. Linear regression models are used to develop projection equations to predict state NAEP results in the future, and the results of such predictions are compared with those obtained in the 1996 administration of NAEP Standard errors of the parameter estimates are obtained using a bootstrap resampling technique.     

Performance evaluation of the high sensitive troponin I assay on the Atellica IM analyser

IntroductionThe Fourth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction Global Taskforce recommends the use of high sensitive troponin (hs-Tn) assays in the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. We evaluated the analytical performance of the Atellica IM High-sensitivity Troponin I Assay (hs-TnI) (Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Inc., Tarrytown, USA) and compared its performance to other hs-TnI assays (Siemens Advia Centaur, Dimension Vista, Dimension EXL, and Abbott Architect (Wiesbaden, Germany)) at one or more sites across Europe.Materials and methodsPrecision, detection limit, linearity, method comparison, and interference studies were performed according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute protocols. Values in 40 healthy individuals were compared to the manufacturer’s cut-offs. Sample turnaround time (TAT) was examined.ResultsImprecision repeatability CVs were 1.1–4.7% and within-lab imprecision were 1.8–7.6% (10.0–25,000 ng/L). The limit of blank (LoB), detection (LoD), and quantitation (LoQ) aligned with the manufacturer’s values of 0.5 ng/L, 1.6 ng/L, and 2.5 ng/L, respectively. Passing-Bablok regression demonstrated good correlations between Atellica IM analyser with other systems; some minor deviations were observed. All results in healthy volunteers fell below the 99th percentile URL, and greater than 50% of each sex demonstrated values above the LoD. No interference was observed for biotin (≤ 1500 µg/L), but a slight bias at 5.0 g/L haemoglobin and 50 ng/L Tn was observed. TAT from was fast (mean time = 10.9 minutes) and reproducible (6%CV).ConclusionsReal-world analytical and TAT performance of the hs-TnI assay on the Atellica IM analyser make this assay fit for routine use in clinical laboratories.